There the prince conferred with Captain General Luis de Unzaga to reach the preliminaries of peace conditions that would later recognize the birth of the United States of America.

[4] George was educated at Harrow School, and left as one of the last King's letter boys[8] to join the Royal Navy, having been appointed, by warrant dated 21 June 1732, a junior officer on board Sunderland.

[10] After serving in home waters learning about convoy protection he was appointed to the newly built Ludlow Castle which he used to blockade the Scottish coast during the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745.

After taking one of the captured prizes to Kinsale in Ireland, Eagle was not present at the First Battle of Cape Finisterre when the Western Squadron commanded by Lord Anson won a significant victory over the French.

While returning from Ireland, Eagle fell in with a small squadron under Commodore Thomas Fox which sighted a French merchant convoy heading for the Bay of Biscay.

In total around 48 merchantmen were taken by the squadron, although Rodney ignored an order of Fox by pursuing several ships which had broken away from the rest in an attempt to escape managing to capture six of them.

He had initially been undecided whether to marry Jane or her younger sister Kitty whom he had met in Lisbon during his various visits to the city, where their father Charles Compton was consul.

Despite this fighting formal war wasn't declared in Europe until 1756 and opened with a French attack on Minorca, the loss of which was blamed on Admiral John Byng who was court-martialled and executed.

Next year, in the same ship, he was ordered to serve under Boscawen as part of an attempt to capture the strategic French fortress of Louisbourg in North America.

[20] Rodney and his ship played a minor role in the taking of Louisburg, which laid the way open for a British campaign up the St Lawrence River the following year, and the fall of Quebec.

In August 1758 Rodney sailed for home in charge of six warships and ten transports carrying the captured garrison of Louisbourg who were being taken to Britain as prisoners of war.

[22] The admiralty had received intelligence that the French had gathered at Le Havre, at the mouth of the River Seine, a large number of flat-bottomed boats and stores which were being collected there for an invasion of the British Isles.

In August Rodney was again sent to Le Havre with similar orders but through a combination of weather and improved French defences he was unable to get his bomb-vessels into position, and the Admiralty accepted his judgement that a further attack was impossible.

[23] Lord Anson then selected him to command the naval element of a planned amphibious attack on the lucrative and strategically important French colony of Martinique in the West Indies, promoting him over the heads of a number of more senior officers.

The land forces for the attack on Martinique were to be a combination of troops from various locations including some sent out from Europe and reinforcements from New York City, who were available following the Conquest of Canada which had been completed in 1760.

However he was later criticised for moving his ships to protect Jamaica from attack by a large Franco-Spanish force that had gathered in the area, rather than waiting to support the expedition as he had been ordered.

Rodney looted Jewish personal possessions and even tore out the linings of the clothes of his captives in search of hidden valuables; this alone yielded him 8,000 pounds.

In particular, Viscount Samuel Hood suggested that Rodney should have sailed to intercept a French fleet under Rear Admiral Francois Joseph Paul de Grasse, travelling to Martinique.

[36] Plundering the wealth of St. Eustatius and capturing many prizes over a number of months, Rodney further weakened his fleet by sending two ships-of-the-line to escort his treasure ships to England, though both were in need of major repair.

Rodney had received intelligence earlier that de Grasse would send part of his fleet before the start of the hurricane season to relieve the French squadron at Newport and to co-operate with Washington, returning in the fall to the Caribbean.

What Rodney and Hood could not know was that at the last moment de Grasse decided to take his entire fleet to North America, leaving the French merchantmen to the protection of the Spanish.

The result was a decisive French superiority in battleships during the subsequent naval campaign, when the combined fleets of Hood and Graves were unable to relieve the British army of Charles Cornwallis, who was then establishing a base on the York River.

A long and wearisome controversy exists as to the originator of the manoeuvre of "breaking the line" in this battle, but the merits of the victory have never seriously been affected by any difference of opinion on the question.

A shift of wind broke the French line of battle, and the British ships took advantage of this by crossing in two places;[6] many were taken prisoner including the Comte de Grasse.

[40] In a 15 April letter to Lord George Germain, who unknown to Rodney had recently lost his position, he wrote "Permit me most sincerely to congratulate you on the most important victory I believe ever gained against our perfidious enemies, the French".

[41] The news of Rodney's victories reached England on 18 May 1782 via HMS Andromache and boosted national morale in Britain and strengthened the pro-war party, who wished to carry on the fight.

[42] Rodney was preparing to sail to meet the enemy off Cape Haitien when HMS Jupiter arrived from England, not only relieving him of duty, but also bringing his replacement: Admiral Hugh Pigot.

[44] Rodney was unquestionably a most able officer, but he was also vain, selfish and unscrupulous,[45] both in seeking prize money, and in using his position to push the fortunes of his family, although such nepotism was common (not to say normal) at the time.

Naval historian Nicholas A. M. Rodger describes Rodney as possessing weaknesses with respect to patronage "which destroyed the basis of trust upon which alone an officer can command.

[48] In February 1783, the government of Jamaica commissioned John Bacon, a renowned British sculptor, to create a statue of Admiral Lord Rodney, as an expression of their appreciation.